Archive for the ‘Social Networks’ Category

Building Community in Online Doctoral Classrooms: Instructor Practices that Support Community

Instructors play a role in helping online students develop a sense of community in virtual classrooms, but little is known about instructors’ roles in online graduate programs. To explore the ways in which online instructors helped students create a learning community, defined as a space of connection, closeness and interactivity, the researcher analyzed 50 hours […]

Challenging Teachers’ Pedagogic Practice and Assumptions about Social Media

This article describes an innovative approach to professional development designed to challenge teachers’ pedagogic practice and assumptions about educational technologies such as social media. Developing effective technology-related professional development for teachers can be a challenge for institutions and facilitators who provide this support. To contend with this challenge, we drew on Bain’s (2004) “baker’s dozen” […]

Social media in undergraduate learning: categories and characteristics

This study investigates the core categories and characteristics of the social media technologies (SMTs) that undergraduate students choose to use in their own learning, outside of the formal curriculum. Within a mixed method research methodology, this inquiry employed 30 semi-structured interviews and an online survey (N = 679) to explore why and how undergraduates across disciplines view […]

Social Web Content Enhancement in a Distance Learning Environment: Intelligent Metadata Generation for Resources

Social networking potentially offers improved distance learning environments by enabling the exchange of resources between learners. The existence of properly classified content results in an enhanced distance learning experience in which appropriate materials can be retrieved efficiently; however, for this to happen, metadata needs to be present. As manual metadata generation is time-costly and often […]

The Effects of Integrating Social Learning Environment with Online Learning

The aim of this paper is to present the learning and teaching styles using the Social Learning Environment (SLE), which was developed based on the computer supported collaborative learning approach. To avoid burdening learners with multiple platforms and tools, SLE was designed and developed in order to integrate existing systems, institutional learning, management systems, and […]

Using Social Learning Networks (SLNs) in Higher Education: Edmodo Through the Lenses of Academics

Using Social Learning Networks (SLNs) in Higher Education: Edmodo Through the Lenses of Academics With its total number of users (around 62 million) throughout the world, it is important to determine the views of academics who use Edmodo (the leading SLN. In this respect in the first part of this two-part research, the purpose was […]

Social Networks and the Building of Learning Communities: An Experimental Study of a Social MOOC

  Social Networks and the Building of Learning Communities: An Experimental Study of a Social MOOC This study aimed to analyze the student’s behaviour in relation to their degree of commitment, participation, and contribution in a MOOC based on a social learning approach. Interaction data was collected on the learning platform and in social networks, […]

The Future Trends Forum

The Future Trends Forum is an ongoing, participatory, and open video conversation about the future of higher education. Each week a different guest – an inspiring expert, visionary, practitioner, or researcher – speaks to their area of interest.  I kick off the discussion with a question or two, then facilitate further questions and comments generated by participants via […]

Modelling relationships between students’ academic achievement and community of inquiry in an online learning environment for a blended course

With the advancement in technology, learners are spending a substantial amount of time on online learning. Guided by the community of inquiry (CoI) framework (Garrison, Anderson, & Archer, 1999), this study examined the relationships among students’ perceived teaching element, social element, cognitive element, satisfaction, continuous academic-related online performance, and academic achievement. A revised form of […]

Design and evaluation of a Facebook game for self-directed e-learning

Social networking sites (SNSs) such as Facebook have a potential to become a valuable learning environment. Facebook games with appropriate instructional design may provide players with better learning experiences and outcomes. Using an effective educational Facebook game, we aimed to explore the educational effects of Facebook games as self-directed e-learning environments. We tested our hypotheses […]